The Goals of the Marianist Family Encounters Project ~ explained

This article articulates the goals of the multi-year journey envisioned through the Marianist Family Encounters Project. It also describes how these goals relate to the five Characteristics of Marianist Education, the seven commitments of the Global Compact on Education, and the seven goals of the Laudato Si' Action Platform. Ours is an integrated approach at the intersection of the cry of the earth, the cry of the poor, and the gift of our Marianist charism.

Purpose of the Marianist Encounters Goals

The Marianist Encounters Goals are a set of 5 broad goals endorsed by the Marianist Family Encounters Project in order to guide a 7-year journey of each of the branches, institutions, organizations, and communities of the Marianist Family in two initiatives endorsed by Pope Francis: the Laudato Si Action Platform (LSAP) and the Global Compact on Education (GCE). These Marianist Encounters Goal themes combine the many stated goals of both papal initiatives within a framework that is more concise and also approached from the distinctive language and viewpoint of the Marianist charism. Both papal initiatives (i.e. the LSAP and GCE) are proposed as multi-year journeys that entail a process of reflection, action, and evaluation towards their stated goals. By synthesizing the goals of these initiatives within a Marianist framework, the Marianist Encounters Goals help to combine these various initiatives into a single journey in which each committed branch or institution initiates a process of reflection, action, and evaluation in order to make a substantive improvement to its overall contribution towards the 5 Marianist Encounters Goals.

In order to help frame the stated goals of each papal initiative, the Marianist Family Encounter Project has made intentional use of the Characteristics of Marianist Education (CMEs), which are used by Marianist-sponsored schools and universities and are applicable to all of us as nonformal educators. The Marianist Encounters Goals neither add nor subtract any concepts or commitments from the 7 goals of the LSAP, the 7 goals of the GCE, or the 5 CMEs.

Any branch, institution, or community that has already committed to one or more of the LSAP, GCE, or CMEs should not view the Marianist Encounters Goals as an additional commitment. On the contrary, the intention is to provide greater clarity by synthesizing these 19 various goals and characteristics into a more manageable set of 5 goals. Therefore, although the richness of each of these Marianist Encounters Goals can and should be unpacked by studying the various sources to which they refer, Marianist branches and institutions may use the framework of the Marianist Encounters Goals to focus conversations and transformative actions in a more manageable way. In other words, Marianist branches or institutions that have already committed to the LSAP, GCE, and/or CMEs are invited to view a commitment to the Marianist Encounters Goals as a recommitment to the goals and characteristics to which they have already dedicated themselves in an intentional, renewed, and potentially more holistic manner.

In short: Use these Marianist Encounters Goals to help consolidate and focus conversation around the commitments your branch or institution has already made to the Laudato Si Action Platform, Global Compact on Education, Characteristics of Marianist Education, or other mission-related goals and characteristics to which you are committed.

The Marianist Encounters Goals

Goal 1 – Promote Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation

To better care for our common home by responding to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor in our Marianist ministries and communities.

Sources:

• LSAP 1: Respond to the Cry of the Earth

• LSAP 2: Respond to the Cry of the Poor

• GCE 7: Safeguard and care for our common home

• GCE 5: To educate and be educated on the need for acceptance and in particular, openness to the most vulnerable and marginalized.

• CME 4: Educate for service, justice, peace and the integrity of creation.

Goal 2 – Transform through Integral Ecology

To transform our church and world by continually re-thinking and re-designing curricular and institutional reform in the spirit of an integral ecology that promotes the value and dignity of the human person within our common community of Creation. Within these institutional reforms, further promote the education and empowerment of minoritized populations, especially including women and girls, as well as victims of poverty.

Sources:

• LSAP 5: Ecological education

• GCE 3: Promote full participation of girls and young women in education

• GCE 1: Place the value and dignity of the human person at the center of every formal and informal education process

• CME 2: Provide an integral, quality education

Goal 3 – Listen and Educate in Faith

To educate and form persons of faith through the profound conversion of discovering God in all things, especially in the beauty of Creation, the sighs of the sick and the groans of the afflicted. Ground each educational and formative endeavor in a process of authentic listening to the voices of children and young people in order to co-create these endeavors in light of the particular needs, insights, and movement of the Spirit always already active in younger generations.

Sources:

• LSAP 6: Ecological spirituality

• GCE 2: Listen to the voices of children, teenagers, and the young

• CME 1: Educate for formation in faith

Goal 4 – Foster Sustainable Lifestyles

To be a catalyst for the adaptation and change of our human family by fostering a new ecological economics and the adoption of sustainable lifestyles.

Sources:

• LSAP 3: Ecological economics

• LSAP 4: Adoption of sustainable lifestyles

• GCE 6: To be committed to finding new ways of understanding the economy, politics, growth, and progress that can truly stand at the service of the human person and the entire human family, within the context of an integral ecology.

• CME 5: educate for adaptation and change

Goal 5 – Empower through Family Spirit

To empower resilient, local communities through the promotion of family spirit and regional solidarity within both the Marianist Family and society at large.

Sources:

• LSAP 7: Community resilience and empowerment

• GCE 4: To empower the family

• CME 3: Educate in family spirit

For a one-page handout of the Marianist Encounters Goals, click here.

For a color poster of the Marianist Encounters Goals, click here.

For a downloadable pdf of this article, click here.